


five years are five years too long

by softhuangs (yoonooh)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Meeting - Freeform, Oneshot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoonooh/pseuds/softhuangs
Summary: "Five years could be forever to someone who is waiting for something, and a second to someone who is not ready to face it."In which Doyoung and Jaehyun used to be lovers, and five years after their separation, Doyoung is given the chance to put it all behind him and finally move on.





	five years are five years too long

**Author's Note:**

> forgot to add this but this is in celebration of doyoung’s birthday

DECEMBER 2018

The wind blows harshly when he steps off the bus. The snow that has fallen over the grounds of Seoul last night crunch under his feet, yet another reminder that winter is just starting. Surprisingly, it is void of people this morning. It’s an eerie feeling compared to the crowded bus stop that he is met with everyday on his commute from and to work. Doyoung buries his face into the warmth of his knitted scarf before he checks his phone one last time and starts walking.

The few steps it takes from the familiar bus stop to the coffee shop feel like an eternity that has ended before he takes notice. During occasions, after work, Doyoung would make sure to stop by to grab a coffee, and if he were to be lucky, Seojoon would be behind the counter, taking orders. He would linger for a while, chatting animatedly with his friend. Doyoung isn’t dense. He recognises the way Seojoon looks at him. It’s how he used to look at _him_ , but that was long ago, and Doyoung has learned that life isn’t always one straight path the hard way. Maybe Doyoung wishes they could be anything more. Yet, the more he tries returning the smiles, tries reciprocating the flirtatious gestures, he only finds himself thinking about the past. And his heart is aching once again.

Today is an exception. Doyoung is not here for a mere coffee break, nor is he here to have a quick catch-up session with his friend. The bells jingle - a cheerful sound - when he pushes the door open, and for once, he is glad that Seojoon is off work today out of all days. He wouldn’t be able to face the questioning look he knows would be present on Seojoon’s face. After all, Doyoung never talks about his past.

He sees him immediately. It has always been that way. Doyoung’s eyes have always been inevitably drawn to him, wherever and whenever it may be. In that same moment, upon hearing the bells, he looks up from his phone from where he is sitting by the glass window, and their eyes meet. Jaehyun smiles, revealing white teeth and deep dimples.

“Hi, Doyoung.”

It has been way too long, yet it feels like yesterday. Five years could be forever to someone who is waiting for something, and a second to someone who is not ready to face it. Doyoung thinks about how he had stared down at the wrinkled paper in his hand, alone in his tiny apartment. The numbers had glared back at him, angry ink strokes on stained sheet, as if they were daring him to do something. It was during Chuseok, when Doyoung had decided to return home for a week. He hadn’t done that in four years, ever since he left the countryside for the big, almighty city with all its jammed possibilities and bursting colors. Maybe he may have wanted to search for him, too, knowing that he was somewhere amid the crowded bus stops and the soaring skyscrapers, but that was just the foolish part of him. Doyoung knows he lost Jaehyun that day five years ago, and yet when Jaehyun’s aunt, who’s living next door to his family, had stopped by and given him the paper, he had felt a flaring sensation in his chest. Her face was slightly empathetic, as if she knew this was what he had wanted all along. Doyoung had taken the paper with him back to Seoul, but never allowed himself to do anything until yesterday, when he had decided that five years are enough.

Jaehyun’s voice was like how he remembers it, sultry and sweet. The fear that Jaehyun no longer remembers him was quickly replaced by relief, when Jaehyun had tentatively asked whether he truly was the Doyoung from five years ago. They had then come to an agreement to meet up the following day, and Doyoung was quick to suggest the coffee place that he frequents. Not for any specific reasons, but he thought that it would soothe his raging nerves a little, being in a familiar environment.

Right now, looking at Jaehyun again, Doyoung realizes how most things around them have changed, except for the memories that Doyoung have been bringing with him everywhere, even to the city. With a heart that is slowly starting to beat once again, Doyoung returns the smile with twice the effort. “Hi.”

They don’t hug, because five years are enough to create a gaping void between two people who used to know one another inside out, but Doyoung still feels warmer despite the weather when Jaehyun looks at him. That should be one thing that hasn’t changed, maybe. Jaehyun has already ordered an espresso while waiting for Doyoung, and Doyoung, out of habit, orders a latte with sugar added. This is another thing that’s still the same. They are polar opposites. That may have drawn them to one another at the start, but in the end, it was also what that pushed them away from one another.

Jaehyun sips at his coffee, eyes looking straight into Doyoung’s. His smile is soft this time around, the corners of his lips curving up slightly. His cheeks are a shade of faint rosy pink, the color spreading on the smooth expanse of skin.

“So, how have you been?” Jaehyun speaks up first, eyes still not leaving Doyoung’s face. Suddenly, the air feels hot despite the shivering cold out there and Doyoung tugs at his scarf, unraveling it.

Doyoung has a lot to say. He wants to tell Jaehyun about the nights he lied awake after their last farewell, wondering if there was any place in heaven for him. He wants to tell him about the immense decision he had taken one year after that, no longer able to remain in the place that held all their memories. Everywhere he went reminded him of Jaehyun, and Doyoung felt like an idiot for longing. For _loving_. So he left. Except, he doesn’t say anything about that. Or maybe he did, but it only comes out as a strained “I’ve been fine”. If Jaehyun has paid more attention, he would have noticed the cracks appearing at the corners of Doyoung’s bright smile, and the slight tremble that follows.

The snow has begun to fall outside the window, a heavy downpour of white flakes soon covering every single corner. However, Doyoung finds himself being thrown back to hot summers and humid breezes. Jaehyun and him - they go way back. If he closes his eyes and concentrates, their first meeting is still fresh in his mind, as if that day wasn’t years ago. The first thing he sees is a younger Jaehyun, a mature look fixed on his face, carrying a heavy backpack with all his belongings on his back. He was trudging along the gravel path leading to his aunt’s house, and young Doyoung had curiously followed him with his eyes. Jaehyun came from the city. Doyoung had spent his entire life on the countryside. At first, they didn’t really click. Jaehyun tended to complain over the slightest matter, whether it be the merciless weather or the dirt, while Doyoung was not the type to handle a whiny person whom one would have expected to be more mature and solemn. Yet, somehow, like two opposite poles of a magnet, they started gravitating towards each other. Soon enough, summers no longer felt like summers without one another. Friendship had naturally bloomed into a love that was just as pure and intense. Thinking back, Doyoung wonders about what that went wrong between their first kiss and their last goodbye.

By the time Doyoung snaps back to reality, he realizes that Jaehyun is looking at him questioningly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“You seem so out of it,” Jaehyun laughs easily. For him, everything has always been easy. Briefly, Doyoung wonders if there are any constants in his life. Surely, there is one in Doyoung’s, one that he has pointedly tried not to acknowledge for five years. “I just wanted to know what you’re currently working as. You mentioned yesterday that you write? It went by so quickly, so I could have misheard it.”

Doyoung shakes his head, taking a sip out of his sweet drink. “You heard it right. I’m just a freelance writer for a startup company though. Nothing too fancy, compared to you.”

Jaehyun is studying for a master’s degree and working at Seoul University hospital as an intern simultaneously. Even from the moment Doyoung laid eyes on him, he knew Jaehyun was destined for a great purpose in his life. Maybe he was foolish to have once believed he would be a part of it.

Smiling shyly, Jaehyun ducks his head. “I’m trying my best. I’m glad you got to work with something you love. You have always loved writing, remember?”

Of course, he remembers. The fact that he remembers sends something hopeful flickering in his chest, but Doyoung stomps on it before it could catch fire.

“You were part of the reason why I loved writing.” It comes out without much thought, and Doyoung realizes that a beat too late. Opposite him, Jaehyun looks a little flustered, holding an exhale. “I’m sorry. I said that without thinking.”

Jaehyun adamantly shakes his head. “It’s okay. I’m just taken aback, hearing you say it again after all these years.”

The sky is a clear blue color in Doyoung’s memories. The feeling of the sand beneath his bare feet. Jaehyun’s hand holding tightly onto his as they both were lying down on the beach, staring up at the bright blue as the waves roared, at times soft and at times thundering, against the shore. He remembers them all.

Jaehyun arrived at the beginning of every summer, without fail. Every time, he brought with him the same backpack, containing the same belongings. He also brought with him a dazzling smile and true summer to Doyoung, and that was enough. Doyoung realizes he can’t recall anything in particular during the rest of the year, but the summers are there, with every breath he takes.

However, as the summers came and went, Jaehyun’s smile also got a little less bright. At first, it was only a diminishing happy demeanor, but as time went by, Jaehyun stopped smiling altogether. He still hugged Doyoung, and kissed him softly on his lips, but Doyoung didn’t feel like he was kissing a living person. Jaehyun was nothing but an empty shell, his soul having been sucked dry by the loud city and drowned in deafening music as well as neon lights. No matter how hard Doyoung tried, the connection between them that once existed was broken. Still, Doyoung never stopped trying. Neither did he stop loving.

It aches, just a little, seeing how happy Jaehyun seems five years after, sitting face to face with Doyoung. As if there was never any painful leaving between them to begin with. As if the person whom Doyoung used to know has been replaced by someone identical, this time full of life and joy. The city is still draining, still exhausting as ever. It still demands, yet never gives. But somehow, Jaehyun’s smile returned under the time they spent apart. It aches just a little more, when he wishes that he could have been the one to witness that, and remembers wistfully how his efforts back then were always to no avail. That leaves a sudden bitter taste in his mouth, and he wonders if someone has accidentally added more espresso shots than necessary in his coffee.

A stream of laughter brushes by behind Doyoung. It is a girl and a boy, arms tucked into one another, talking in elated voices as they exit the shop. His gaze follows them a little too long, follows the way the girl giggles at her boyfriend and the way he returns the heartfelt gesture as genuinely, and by the time he averts his gaze back to Jaehyun, his heart drops. The other is looking at him with an immense sorrow, as if he finally _understands_. Unspoken apologies hang heavily between the tiny space separating the two of them. Doyoung can easily reach out to Jaehyun, but he cannot. Not physically. Not even in his thoughts.

“Doyoung, back then-”

“Don’t say anything,” Doyoung quickly interrupts, face stoic. His hand grips his knee tightly, his breathing coming out as uneven. “I’m not sure if I want to hear it.”

Jaehyun heaves a sigh, ruffling his hair slightly. The honey brown strands fall over his forehead as he does. The new hair color on Jaehyun doesn’t make him look any less handsome, but Doyoung feels an unfamiliar feeling creeping onto him nonetheless. The last time Doyoung saw him, his hair was a pitch black. It had always been so. “Doyoung, it’s been five years.”

He doesn’t sound angry. Nor is he annoyed, or anything of that sort. Jaehyun never acted that way towards Doyoung, which may have been why they never lasted. Doyoung would have preferred a furious Jaehyun over a quiet, withdrawn one anytime. Right now, Jaehyun just sounds like he’s tiptoeing on glass shards that make up Doyoung’s heart. One wrong step, and they both would be bleeding.

“Five years are a long time-”

Jaehyun silently nods, eyes tracing patterns on the wooden table.

“-and I thought that I would be able to move on. I think I’m getting there, sometimes. But then I would be thinking about you, about us, and it’s a downward spiral once again. It’s like I’m cutting the string, just to connect them back one second later out of anxiety and regret. What am I even expecting?”

The wind roars furiously as the snow rages on. There is a wistful look on Jaehyun’s soft features. “I shouldn’t have left you that day. I never deserved someone like you.”

“Tell me,” Doyoung exhales. “Did you even think of me at all during all these years?”

“I did,” Jaehyun says, voice a little weary. “I really did. But I know I didn’t want to live in the past anymore. I thought about you after a while when I got better. However, I did it not in regrets, but in a nostalgic kind of way.”

Doyoung scoffs, sounding like he was giving up. “I lied. I haven’t been fine, not at all. I thought I would. I wished I would, but it turns out to be futile every time. Why is it always so easy for you?”

They sit in silence after that. Outside, the snowfall worsens. For a split second, Doyoung regrets not tearing the paper apart the moment he got it. He should have let the memories eat him up inside out, rather than facing the truth for mere closure, and having to open up the wounds after such a long time of trying to sew them closed. Like any other relationships, they didn’t work out. Doyoung started grasping onto the ghost of a person who did not even want to be there, and during that one late summer, Jaehyun returned to the city to never come back again. There was not much to say. Nothing extravagant that had broken them apart; rather tiny snippets of a disintegrating relationship that had led them to this point. If so, he tries thinking about why he hasn’t fully moved on after all these years, and why he had chosen to instead suppress the feelings the best he could, hoping that they would be gone by the time he is ready to face them.

Shifting in his seat, Jaehyun finally breaks the tense silence. The almost finished coffee of his lies cold and forgotten on the table. “You used to be the only thing I looked forward to during the summer. Maybe even during the whole year. I always told myself to push through another year, so that I could finally leave the stuffy city and see you again-”

 _Then why did you stop smiling at some point?_ Doyoung thinks bitterly. _Why did you turn so distant and aloof, even when I was there by your side?_

“-but I was wrong about many things. I thought the countryside would heal me, but it only made it worse. It was never a problem about the environment, or where I was. It was just me. The pressure I put on myself. The disappointment I threw at myself. Once one thing started, another one followed.”

“You could have told me,” Doyoung says, eyes searching for Jaehyun’s. “I-I could have done something.”

There is a sad smile adorning Jaehyun’s lips. “How could someone have helped me if I wouldn’t even allow myself to be helped? I was set on driving myself to a dead end, Doyoung. And I never thought about how you would feel while being with me, selfish as I was. I finally realized what I did to you when I was back here, but by then I was long gone from the countryside, and I just couldn’t return again.”

“I loved you. I tried to hold onto you even until the last second, all while knowing you only wanted out. Out of this. Out of everything.”

Their eyes meet over the table. The coffee shop has become even more quiet than it was when Doyoung arrived. It makes Jaehyun’s voice amplify in the short distance between the two of them.

“I know,” Jaehyun finally replies. “I know. I’m sorry. We were both foolish. I guess this was a lesson for the both of us.”

“Do you ever regret anything?” Doyoung asks in a tentative voice, afraid of something he isn’t sure of.

Maybe he regrets the fact that he still thinks about Jaehyun for years after their separation. Maybe he doesn’t, because that has given him the driving force to break free from the place that once held him grounded and made him willing to take the step into the city, where he has the opportunity to be something more. One thing is for sure, he doesn’t regret trying to keep Jaehyun from leaving, even if that attempt was nothing but in vain. He doesn’t regret baring all his feelings for the one he loved, even if that meant endless of pain and heartbreak on his end.

“-veral things,” Jaehyun’s voice snaps him back to the reality of the cozy and silent coffee shop. “I hate myself for not telling you the truth and for not making an effort to stay, no matter how desperate I was to leave. But one thing I won’t ever regret is leaving the countryside. Also, I never regret loving you. You were truly one of the best things that happened to me, and I feel like I would go home with one more regret if I didn’t tell you that today.”

So they are on the same page. Doyoung returns the smile, and his heart beats faster inside his ribcage. He’s still thinking of bittersweet endings, and drawing up the picture of the both of them together had their relationship not gone south and turned for the worse in his mind. But hearing Jaehyun say that lifts something off his shoulders, because he suddenly feels less of a urge to burrow his face into his hands and burst into tears. This is what he should have realized all along. Despite the sad goodbye that summer day, their love was undeniably real. However, nothing lasts forever. Jaehyun has moved on, and so should he.

“Thank you for telling me,” Doyoung says. “That took such a long time, didn’t it?”

For the first time, they both let out a tiny laugh. It’s not strained, nor does it make Doyoung’s heart hurt as much as he expects it to.

“I cannot say that I have truly moved on, but I will make an effort to. I don’t regret loving you either, Jaehyun. You did teach me so many things, after all. Without you, I wouldn’t even be here, in Seoul. You changed my life. Despite the years I spent feeling chained by our past relationship, I don’t think it was half as bad as you think it is.”

Jaehyun laughs a little, eyes crinkled up in a cute manner. His phone lights up with a message notification, and his expression changes upon reading the name of the sender. Doyoung recognises that smile. It is the same one he had looked at Doyoung with when they were there on the beach, carefree and not minding anything about the outside world. In that moment, it was just the both of them and Jaehyun’s smile could give Doyoung the power to achieve anything. Whoever it even is, Doyoung does feel something akin to jealousy brewing in his stomach but mostly, he feels at ease knowing that Jaehyun has found happiness again. It really is time for him to finally find his smile again after having lost it for so long.

“So, tell me, Doyoung,” Jaehyun says with a fond smile directed at Doyoung after replying to the message and locking his phone, hands tucked under his chin and elbows placed on the table. “Why don’t we catch up with all the years we spent away from one another? We still have plenty of time, don’t you think?”

 

AUGUST 2013

Late summer is always nice, especially when the sun is no longer glaring down at them in the middle of the day, but the weather still leaves enough room for flimsy clothes and short baths in the sea. The bus is set to arrive any minute now. Jaehyun still hasn’t said a word ever since they left his aunt’s house and trudged past the long stretch of pier running along the ocean. Doyoung is still throwing not-so-surreptitious glances at the boy every now and then from where they’re seated at the old bus stop.

It feels like a chapter is coming to an end, and Doyoung is refusing to turn the last page. It’s been a while since he saw Jaehyun’s true happy face, beaming brightly at him. It’s been a while since Jaehyun kissed him not because they are in a relationship, but because he wanted to. But Doyoung loves him with all his heart, and that is why it hurts even more to accept the truth. The bus that would come soon is going to take Jaehyun back to where he belongs, and although unspoken between the two of them, Doyoung knows deep down that Jaehyun is to never return. Then, the only one left behind is Doyoung together with the memories of a broken relationship. He is left to face everything alone, and he doesn’t know if he can ever move on.

 _Maybe I should leave too, one day,_ he thinks as he kicks absent-mindedly at a pebble.

The sound of tires rolling in the distance makes his head jerk up. Jaehyun isn’t looking at him. His eyes are trained on the gravel road beneath. Even if he were to look at him, Doyoung knows he would only see empty eyes staring right back. This isn’t Jaehyun, and he’s not sure if he would ever get to see the Jaehyun whom he once knew again.

“The bus is coming,” Doyoung says softly, a hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder. At this, Jaehyun stands up, picking up his backpack. All without uttering a single word. “Hey, Jaehyun.”

The boy responds to his name being called by looking up to meet Doyoung’s sad eyes.

“Will you be back next summer?” Doyoung asks.

The silent gaze he is met with is enough of an answer. He inhales. With that, another summer has gone by. This time, it also brings Jaehyun together with it.

**Author's Note:**

> uH so that was pretty short ,, i wrote everything in one long sitting, and i didn't want to pull an all-nighter so i finished it off pretty quickly. hope it was still an enjoyable read anyways! ! idk why, but for me, dojae is such a good pairing. it feels like i can explore a lot bout their dynamics compared to my other nct otps
> 
> fun fact: i wrote the same storyline as part of my swedish finals in ninth grade and the teacher absolutely loved it lol so i bascially just adapted that to dojae and made it longer


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